Breaking and Entering, Bushwick, Brooklyn

Imagine— if you will— settling in on a Saturday night. Pizza has been ordered and engulfed (enthusiastically). Wine bottles sit empty on the kitchen counter. Your roommate is sitting beside you, denting the cushions and lighting a blunt to share. With all the constant excitement of the world, the simple pleasure of a Saturday night cannot be overstated, and the need to guard this treasured— nay— sacred time is of the utmost importance.

How unfortunate it would be…

if someone were to…

interrupt you.

On January 29th, my worldly friend invited me to a screening in Bushwick. Setting aside the fact that it was in Bushwick, I agreed to accompany her, my excitement building with every jolting subway stop as she told me more about the event.

“I was invited by those opera-heads I told you about from the poetry reading last week,” she said, a string of words that could only be common on the east side of the L train. “There’ll be a bunch of artists there— actors, playwrights, you know, your people.”

A not insignificant part of me fluttered at my inclusion with the alt-theatrical community. The very idea that a fellow playwright may find me tonight and give consideration to my two cents made me wonder where artists such as us might find an excess of cents to rub together. 

Such was my excitement that I hardly noticed the mounds of snow that walled the curbs, nor the crisp chill in the air. I was acutely aware of the slush that seeped through my boots, but the cheerful buzz of networking opportunities pushed the discomfort from my mind. The gift of the girlboss, it seemed to me.

I was surprised that the address provided led us down a rather residential block, snow-covered stoops lining each side of the street. But who was I to doubt either Google or Bushwick? If this was how the artists lived, then I would embrace it. So I followed my worldly friend down the snow-laden street, and up the iced-over stairs to a brownstone that faced south. 

The snow had crept uninvited into the entryway of the house, the front door propped open by the breeze. I squinted my confusion at the snowy doorway, but my worldly friend only shrugged, explaining that one of the earlier guests probably left the door open and the snow must’ve followed them inside. 

Yes, an earlier guest; that rang true to me as we were, per usual, fashionably late. It had nettled me the whole train ride simply because the nature of the event was a screening and I worried that should we miss the first act of the film, we would be utterly lost for the rest of it. How would I perform empathy for the male characters to build trust with the men in power if I didn’t understand the full scope of the inciting incident? As it stood, we had arrived all of twenty minutes late and could already hear the movie muffled through the apartment door. We tiptoed up the main staircase, whispering to each other about the logistics of entering the apartment without fully disrupting the showing. My worldly friend texted the host and then texted again, but there was no answer. We looked to each other in social anxiety and slowly mustered enough courage between the two of us for my worldly friend to open the door and me to push her through it. 

From the hallway, I heard her name from a voice in the apartment and I kicked myself for letting us be late to an event full of “my people.” I sighed, anticipating the awkward wade through the crowd as we shuffled in, and followed my friend through the door. 

Big mistake. 

At the moment, I figured I could turn tail and run. I could cry. I could yell “Fire!” or even better just start a fire and evacuate the whole building. But instead, I was frozen in antisocial fear behind my worldly friend as we stared down two very surprised men sitting on their couch, drinking their beer, in their very empty apartment. 

It turns out, we were not late. In fact, we were quite early. Two weeks early, if you must know. The door was not unlocked to invite guests in, but rather because it seemed this was how the typical Bushwick artist lived: with doors open to inspiration and wandering women.

Luckily, this was Bushwick and we were in the company of “my people,” so everyone thought the whole situation was hilarious. The two men in the living room welcomed us and offered us the remnants of weed and wine. We sat on their couch and learned that the movie we’d heard from the hall was not the new screening of the third roommate’s film, but instead Hannah and Her Sisters. I had never actually seen this particular Woody Allen film (my father favored Love and War, rightfully so, and then with the whole scandal, I never found time to revisit his other work). But the four of us giggled through its second half, each scene peppered with commentary to fill in what my worldly friend and I had missed. By the time the film was over, we had also been introduced to their third roommate (the filmmaker) and the house cat, both of whom were utterly lovely in every way. 

We switched from Woody Allen to Girls after all the girls in the room attested to never having seen it. One of the men appropriately put on the Bushwick episode, and I turned to the other, whom my worldly friend had informed me was a playwright. 

“I hear you’re a playwright.” 

He nodded, “Yes, you as well?”

“Yes.”

We both turned back to the show and laughed with the rest of the couch. 

“I’d love to read some of your work,” he said.

“Of course, and same to you.”

He smiled. “I want to get a group together. Really try and make playwriting sexy again.”

That made me laugh with some honesty and I immediately handed over my phone to trade contact information. I’m always happy to work with someone willing to make me laugh.

After the Bushwick episode, the men suggested a second episode about a beach house and the room wholeheartedly agreed. I had to say I was surprised by Girls. I had heard of it, envied it, and rolled my eyes at its praises, but I’d never actually watched it before, and I admit it was better than I had expected. It managed, at points, to do that wonderful thing that Seinfeld and Sex in the City had done, when, in a span of thirty minutes, any true New Yorker could identify at least one moment of commonality. And in a city so impossible to capture, where experiences are as mundane as soup lunches and ex-boyfriends and as wild as Bushwick raves and casual breaking and entering, one true moment in thirty can be a lot to ask. But not, as attested to by New York’s artists, utterly impossible.